Judgement
Almighty Judge, how shall poor wretches brook
Thy dreadful look,
Able a heart of iron to appal,
When thou shalt call
For ev'ry man's peculiar book?
What others mean to do, I know not well;
Yet I hear tell,
That some will turn thee to some leaves therein
So void of sin,
That they in merit shall excel.
But I resolve, when thou shalt call for mine,
That to decline,
And thrust a Testament into thy hand:
Let that be scanned.
There thou shalt find my faults are thine.
In three rapid fire stanzas Herbert dares to imagine his survival of a face to face encounter with the Almighty judge. Acknowledging up front in the poem, that each person is a poor wretch who has no defences against the dreadful look and apalling scrutiny, he knows there is no escape from the final reckoning.
"Ev'ry man's peculiar book' is a familiar metaphor for the story of a human life. Deeds and words, thoughts and motives, achievements and failures, all the twisted turnings of relationships, chosen paths and culpable evasions, all are recorded as evidence of how a life has been lived. Each person has their own peculiar, particular, unique and personally written story.
But what to do? There are shameful sins and chosen wrongs, evil inclinations and toxic thoughts, persistence in known wrong and evasions of responsibility for what we ought to have owned as our fault, our true and deliberate fault. By this time Herbert should be terrified, but instead he takes time to speculate about how others will survive God's judgement.
The middle stanza is a 17th Century Protestant critique of the Catholic doctrine of merit. Here and there in the book are pages of moral and spiritual achievement, whole days when no sin is recorded. These are evidence of good intent, of genuine effort, that the heart is in the right place. Herbert's criticism is in the irony "so void of sin that they in merit shall excel." In this verse the Reformation cry, "not of works lest any man should boast" is made doubly effective by its mere statement without explicitly argued contradiction.
Instead Herbert tells of his own intended strategy. The last verse is either irreverent presumption or it is blessed assurance. Indeed, in Calvinist theology one of the greatest spiritual dilemmas is the basis of assurance. What it is that gives certainty of faith to the Christian soul that on the day of judgement, they will survive the all seeing scrutiny of Almighty God.
Herbert is so assured of acquittal and acceptance that he will "thrust" a Testament into God's hand, like a good defence lawyer throwing incontrovertible evidence of innocence on the table of the court for the Judge to read. Actually, in full flow now, Herbert even tells the Judge what to do – "Let that be scanned." Test it, weigh it, receive it as final proof – of what? Not of Herbert's innocence, but of something else.
"There thou shalt find my faults are thine." We are thrust into the mystery of sin and forgiveness, of guilt and righteousness, and the Testament has much to say about that in the court of God's judgement. "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Cor 5.21) Herbert is with Paul when it comes to assurance on the day of Judgement: "That I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith." (Phil. 3.8-9)
There is something outrageous about the curt "my sins are thine." In four words Herbert condenses an entire atonement theology of substitution, the righteous dying for the unrighteous, the life given a ransom for many, being redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. The line between fully embraced forgiveness and assurance, and complacent contentment that all shall be well, is sometimes finely drawn. "There thou shalt find my sins are thine" comes close to crossing it, in its triumphant thrusting in God's face, the evidence of God's sacrificial love in the gift and death of his Son, for the world's sin, Herbert's sins, and ours.
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